Automated Card Grading - Surface

[steve B]

What is ML?

[swarmee]

Originally Posted by steve B

What is ML?

Machine Learning.

[steve B]

Originally Posted by swarmee

Machine Learning.

Totally spaced on that one. I'm not used to some of the acronyms these days.

[68Hawk]

What's interesting to me is that graders already do much of what is being described in this thread but collectors don't believe that all that criteria has been evaluated and resulted in the end grade.
But tell those same collectors that a computer with zero conflict or skin in the game has arrived at the exact same grade and there will be less argument.
I guess that's progress for some.

Imagine now that the machines become predominant graders of cards, and someone cracks out a card and shows the evaluation was incorrect for flawed data or programming....2 years AFTER first submissions have been taken and millions of graded cards later.
EVERY single card evaluated to that point could be considered a candidate for inaccurate grading because one incorrect application of ML can be extrapolated and cancerous to ALL its evaluations, not simply the vagaries of opinion of one grader to another.
Will all your hobby concerns float away magically with this panacea?
I think not.
But good luck.

[swarmee]

Originally Posted by 68Hawk

Imagine now that the machines become predominant graders of cards, and someone cracks out a card and shows the evaluation was incorrect for flawed data or programming....2 years AFTER first submissions have been taken and millions of graded cards later.

That's one reason I'm asking so many questions now. If they just start grading without having a finely tuned system, the grades will be inadequate. Consistency is required of a grading company or tool.

[toledo_mudhen]

Originally Posted by swarmee

That's one reason I'm asking so many questions now. If they just start grading without having a finely tuned system, the grades will be inadequate. Consistency is required of a grading company or tool.

I believe the current "Human" process of grading a card involves the opinions from several (if not many) pairs of eyes before the final grade is actually assigned and I don't anticipate that AI will (or can) completely eliminate the "human"factor.

However - I do believe that this "eGrade" could become an extremely useful tool in expediting the entire process as the intermediate sets of eyes could be completely eliminated where each card is initially assigned an AI grade and then it would need to pass thru a final "human" evaluation process (with just a few sets of highly qualified eyes) before being assigned the final "Certified Grade" and then slabbed and returned to the customer.

I see this as a huge move towards completely eliminating the 6-12 month turnaround times that we currently enjoy.

Best of Luck in your endeavors -

[kevinlenane]

For sure nothing is totally "perfect" when it comes to grading - the concern about the machine learning viral error idea - isn't exactly how it works. We actually have 3 distinct human inputs and several more classes of machine inputs all providing grades on the same sample cards so in theory over time any nuance gets built in to the best average grade per category. We are planning on having the proof of concept ready to grade several vintage wax breaks live on camera for the Beckett Industry Summit - and ill fire out the test version here if folks want to give feedback on it technically (technically meaning as it relates to the grade evaluation not coding). I want to incorporate as much feedback as possible amongst the group here for the vintage grading in particular as there is a lot of nuance to various set/year pairs that I feel should be included over time. My goal here is to provide an instant service that is transparent provides all the available raw data that make up and produce the various numbers.